It is well-known that the fertility processes which occur in females, especially in human females, are highly complex, and continuing efforts are being made in this area to more fully understand these processes so as to facilitate the development of improved techniques for treating fertility problems as well as more effective and reliable birth control methods. In the fertility problem area, there is an acute need for an improved method of studying women who wish to conceive but are unable to do so, and this need extends to women experiencing other difficulties such as menstrual cycle variations and other problems associated with the female child-bearing organs.
In the birth control area, there is an acute need for improved birth control methods which are not only effective in preventing conception but also have a reduced incidence of adverse physical side effects. There are a wide variety of birth control methods available, but these are often unacceptable due to the fact that they are unreliable (i.e., prevention of conception is not assured), or for medical reasons, or on religious grounds. One example of a birth control method which is unreliable is the so-called "rhythm" method, which is based on the fact that the woman is not fertile, i.e., ovulation has not occurred or is not about to occur, during a certain period in her menstrual cycle. The major disadvantage associated with this method is that, while the time period from when ovulation naturally occurs to the next succeeding menstrual period is essentially fixed in all women, the time period between the beginning of a menstrual period and the next ovulation can vary considerably depending of the particular woman concerned. It is during the time period between the beginning of a menstrual period and the onset of the next succeeding ovulation that sexual intercourse can occcur without conception occurring since during this period the female ovum has not yet been produced by the woman. However, significant risks do exist with the "rhythm" method since, even if the woman has not ovulated at the time of sexual intercourse, ovulation occurring one or two days thereafter can result in conception since the life span of male sperm in the vaginal can be as long as one to two days, and sometimes longer.
Some methods do exist for determining when a woman is about to ovulate but these are inconvenient and difficult to interpret. One such method requires the woman to take her temperature every morning and to plot this on a graph. From the shape of the graph, it is possible to see when ovulation has actually occured, but the major problems associated with this method is that fluctuations in body temperature can occur for many reasons other than the ovulation process.
In view of the above, it can be seen that there exists a need for an improved method for evaluating fertility in woman so that fertility problems can be alleviated and appropriate birth control methods can be selected and reliably practiced, thereby reducing anxiety as well as the risk of unwanted conception.